1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a method of producing tourmaline anion fiber and filter material, and more particularly to a method of producing composite fiber from tourmaline, Thermoplastic Elastomer (TPE) and polypropylene or polyethylene, and then forming into filter material, such that the fiber can generate anion, and present outstanding permeability and mechanical property.
2. Description of Related Art
With growing industrialization and social progress, the human beings now meet the challenge of worsening environmental pollution and decreasing anion in atmosphere. And, owing to the transformation of living functions, the people now spend most of time in a limited indoor environment, where air filter is a key factor to ensure good air quality. Today, improving technologically air quality by filter materials without jeopardizing natural environment is one of most cost-effective ways. Therefore, high-tech textiles now become a focus of competition on international textile market, and also contribute much to the growth of textile industry. Anion-based textile products now raise a high priority concern of international textile industry thanks to a wide range of benefits, such as: accelerating blood circulation of human body, improving functional efficiency and physical status, supplementing microelement for the human body, generating far-infrared ray and stimulating recovery function of human cells.
There are three approaches to improve indoor air quality: improve ventilation, minimize indoor pollutants and utilize air cleaner units. For this purpose, differential pressure of filter materials must be lowered with a higher rate of ventilation. Also, filter efficiency shall be improved. An air cleaner unit comprises a cooler, a cleaner and a dehumidifier.
Indoor air filter is generally made of woven filler screen and non-woven filter screen. Woven filter screen can be cleaned and recycled, with lower differential pressure and filtering efficiency. Non-woven filter materials, made of multi-layer stacks, cannot be recycled with higher filtering efficiency and differential pressure. Differential pressure is a decisive factor to ventilation efficiency, rate of air change and horsepower of air conditioning. One purpose of the present invention is to improve filtering efficiency using woven filter screen with lower differential pressure.
Common filters could filtrate powder, but couldn't remove odor. To achieve this goal, anion generator and active carbon filter shall be generally required. Anion generator could generate ozone (O3), which must be less than 0.12 ppm with poor time efficiency, and also limited within 1 m. So, this generator is not suitable for indoor applications. Active carbon filter also has the problem of absorption saturation. Anion tourmaline, a natural mineral, is recognized as a “dust collector of the nature”. The second purpose of the present invention is to prepare a permanent deodorant fiber by adding submicrometer tourmaline into polypropylene fiber (environmental-friendly plastic).
Tourmaline is easy to absorb powder due to its thermoelectricity and piezoelectricity. The third purpose of the present invention is to identify if the permanent electric property is able to improve the filtering efficiency.
The fourth purpose of the present invention is to study the filters made of common fiber or other fibers, which neither contain extracted vegetable oil, nor yields volatile oil.
Currently, tourmaline or anion fiber technologies are often used to prepare fiber by combining tourmaline and rayon fiber in water solution, or prepare insoluble fiber by tourmaline and polyvinyl alcohol solution, or by combining titania, zinc oxide, zirconia, tourmaline, silicon oxide and aluminum oxide. Though tourmaline is contained in these common technologies, these patented fibers are made of different materials with varied methods. However, the efficiency of above-specified technologies shall be further verified due to absence of preferred embodiment.